Today, is March 15, anniversary of the death of Father Leonardo Castellani. (1889-1981).

Jack Tollers Wrote:It's a real shame: that Fr. Leonardo Castellani is practically unknown by English-speaking Catholics around the world (and that so little of his wonderful work has been translated). So here's Jack Toller's effort to break the ice with an introduction of sorts and three of his essays.

However, to my mind what is really exceptional in Castellani’s views is that, being as he was such a good Bible scholar (and a lover of Holy Scriptures) he easily identified in the Roman Catholic Church a whole trend of thought that drifted away from one of the main dogmas (on the whole in Reformed Churches, the story runs differently).

Here’s how he puts it in one of his books:

Jesus Christ is coming back, and his doing so is one of the dogmas of our faith.

It is one of the more important dogmas that we find wedged between the fourteen articles of faith that we recite every day in the Credo and that we intone when we assist to a solemn Mass. “Et iterum venturus est cum gloria judicare vivos et mortuos”.

Quote:Also, it is a somewhat forgotten one. A splendid dogma, which few people reflect upon.

Its translation runs like this: this world will not evolve indefinitely, nor will it end by chance, as if it were to collide with a fallen star, nor will it end by natural evolution of its elementary forces or cosmic entropy as physics like to say. Instead, it will end by a direct intervention from its Creator. It will not die from a natural death, but by a violent one; or to put it better—since He is a God of life and not of death, from a miraculous death. *

But things were worse than that. Not only the modern world (and good portions of the Church) had forgotten this. They actually forgot to even consider the question.

Quote:Our world’s specific mental disease is to think that Christ will never come back; or, at the very least, to not even consider His coming.

Consequently, the modern world doesn’t understand what’s happening to it. They say Christianity has failed. Intent on saving humanity, they invent fanatical as well as atrocious systems. They are about to beget a new religion. They want to build another Babel tower that will reach unto heaven. They want to win back Paradise with their own forces.

As Hilaire Belloc described it, apparently today’s heresy doesn’t explicitly deny any one Christian dogma, only falsifies them all.

But on second thoughts it manifestly denies Christ’s Second Coming; and with that it denies his Regnancy, his Messiahship and his Divinity. In short, it denies the whole divine process of history. And in denying Christ’s Divinity it denies God Himself.

This is radical atheism dressed up with religious clothes.

As anyone can easily see, this characterises nearly every trend in our world and in the Church in our times. Think about Vatican II. Remember John XXIII's admonition against the “prophets of doom” on occasion of its formal inauguration? Think about John Paul II (or even Benedict XVI if you feel up to it). To my knowledge they have never referred to the Second Coming. And it’s not only a most important dogma of our Faith. It has been prophesied that in the last days, it would be, precisely, forgotten. With what consequences?

I look forward to perusing these. Thank you for bringing them to our attention.